This invention relates broadly to the art of fish hook assemblies, and more specifically to weedless fish hook assemblies of a type having flexible members attached to hook members to prevent the hook members from hooking debris.
There have been, and are, a number of weedless fish hook assemblies on the market. However, the structures of many such weedless fish hook assemblies adversely affect their built-in action. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,128 to Tremblay describes a weedless fish hook for a lure having a foam shield which can absorb water which thereby develops additional weight or drag. For this reason, it is an object of this invention to provide a weedless fish hook assembly which does not adversely affect the natural action of a fish hook assembly as it is pulled along in the water.
Yet another difficulty with many prior art weedless fish hook assemblies is that they only have one hook, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,169,299 to Morin. The fish hook assembly of the Morin patent is currently being sold and has been reasonably successful. However, the consequences of snagging hooks is greatest when a fisherman uses an expensive lure, such as a plug. In this regard, if a plug is lost, it costs the fisherman much more than if only one hook is lost. Most expensive plugs have hook assemblies with multiple-hook members, such as treble hook members. For this reason, it is an object of this invention to provide a weedless hook assembly having a shield which works well with a multiple-hook member.
Yet another difficulty with many prior art weedless hook assemblies is that they are somewhat complex and difficult to manufacture. Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a weedless hook assembly which is relatively easy and inexpensive to manufacture and to provide a method for manufacturing such a weedless hook assembly.
Still another problem involved with weedless hook assemblies, and their method of manufacture, is that many of the shield mechanisms thereof not only tend to deflect debris from spear ends of hook members, but also tend to deflect mouths of fishes from the spear ends and therefore introduce a higher rate of failure for hooking fish. For this reason, it is an object of this invention to provide a shielded, weedless, hook assembly in which the shield thereof does not unduly deflect the mouths of fishes trying to bite bait on the hooks and therefore does not unduly affect the hooking incidences of these weedless hook assemblies.